Hi there!
I have the Bentwood Hood from Old World Stoneworks. I looked at that company too but I liked the idea of the corbels for extra support. I am DIY myself but I had a mason install mine. There are several things to consider...

INSTALLATION
It had to be pinned together and mounted in sections over a 3 day period. Each section has to mounted and cemented in place and dried before the next section.

SUPPORT
There also needs to be adequate support behind the wall and under the floor because it weighs 800 pounds. I had to sister studs together to form 6 inch wide supports for the hood to hand from. Plus, the hood has to be tilted slightly up in front so the weight was directed back. Luckily, I had a main support beam under this wall but the mason told me some walls will require extra support under the floor.

MAINTENANCE
The stone is very porous too. It will need to cure several weeks before sealing it. While I was waiting for it to cure before I sealed it, I spilled a pot of coffee on the corbel and stained it. A muriatic acid wash whitens and cleans it but the fumes alone are enough to etch stainless steel so I was afraid to ruin my stainless appliances. I like the idea of a hood that looks used so I will let it age gracefully and naturally, stains and all.

PRICE
I originally fell in love with a baroque copper hood which was priced at $6000. I wasn't willing to pay that much so I found the stone one for $3000, delivered. I thought it was a better deal and I love the look of them. After install and paying for the liner, the whole thing came to $5700. I could have gotten the copper one and installed it myself in a day. There is no way I could have installed this hood.

I hope this information helps you. Although the hoods are certainly beautiful, there are more things to consider than a wood or metal hood. I am not sure if I will choose this in my next house. Here is an older picture of my hood but you get the idea. My backsplash is not in yet. It took me 4 months to choose it and it should be delivered before the holidays.
{{!gwi}}

Oh, Cleo, I can't thank you enough for responding! Your words of advise were exactly what I was looking for! I knew these hoods were heavy, but I had no idea they were 800 pounds! I also had no idea installation was so involved!!

Your kitchen is just gorgeous and your hood was one of the one's that lead to my decision to go this route. Your hood looks larger than the one I've been looking at. If mine is slightly smaller, lighter and doesn't have corbels that come to the countertop - is this DIY doable, of MUST I call a mason? How much of the $5700 was simply installation?

I can't thank you enough for your feedback and for letting me know I have some major thinking ahead and planning to do. No to mention, maybe saving for a mason!

My install price was $1500 but my hood is bigger than the ones in your picture. The mason also charged me $25 per saw cut (wear and tear on the blade). The hood company reimburses up to 6 cuts so I came out even with that.

Find out the weight of the hood first. Maybe the wall mount ones are lighter. My company prided itself on the parts being hollow but I have no idea what they are talking about. Each piece seemed solid to me. The top part near the ceiling are not solid-they are curved pieces about 2 inches thick. Now that I have watched the whole process and learned about masonry-I could probably tackle a smaller one. I am not sure. My husband and I had enough trouble carrying the mantle piece into the house-let alone lifting it over our heads.

Each of the pieces are connected with pins that were cemented into place before installing it. It was pretty time intensive. The hood came with an installation DVD too. I am sure your company has installion specs that are used. One helpful tip...I told the company that I needed a 60 inch hood from countertop to ceiling. They didn't account for the 4 quarter inch grout lines of the 4 layers to the ceiling. This caused the crown molding to be 1 inch too tall. The mason had to trim 1 inch off. Make sure these are accounted for. IMO, that was the responsibility of the hood company. It made the mason really mad. He was used to hoods being no more than 1/32 inch off, not a whole inch. If you decide to have a mason do it-try to find one that has done it before. Otherwise you might as well do it yourself. My guy had done at least 20 hoods, some weighing 10,000 pounds. I felt pretty secure with his expertise.

Thank you for taking the time, Cleo, to educate me on your hood! I feel SO much more informed and now armed to tackle the research needed for me to decide if this is the route for me to go. My heart screams 'YES!' but I realize my husband and handy man have to be able to install this. I'm in talks with the handy man and he's talking with a friend who is a mason and finding out if this is something he can become educated on and do, or not. This forum is SUCH a wealth of information! Thank you for sharing yours with me. It will be Spring before we're done, but we'll show pictures when we are finished!

Cleo - I just spoke with the very helpful man at Architectual Supply. He made me realize I need to be measuring my ceiling height and thinking through how far down this hood would come. I only have 8 foot ceilings and we would have to probably cut 12 inches off the top of the hood and I don't know if that's the look I want. How high are YOUR ceilings? Did you have to special order the height of your hood or not?

Thanks!
Renee

I have 8 foot ceilings. They did alter the basic design for that reason. On the top of my hood there are flat stone pieces under the crown. Since my ceiling is only 8 ft, they removed the whole second row of the blocks. I think it still looks ok. Old World Stoneworks wants to put a picture of the hood on their website when all is done because most of these hoods are not used in an 8 foot application. I can't help it that my tastes are more palatial than my cottage sized house.lol

When I ordered it, I had to tell them the height from countertop to ceiling on each side of the range and the center point too. Plus I had to tell them distance from cooktop to bottom edge of the hood. Mine sit on the counter so the numbers had to be really close. You would need to decide your mounting height above the cooking surface. This is determined by a few things...the chefs height, ventilation specs etc. Make sure you account for arches in the mantle part (if you have them). I didn't account for the arches so I had to mount my blower 3 inches over the max height in the specs. You can email me directly if you want. I learned a lot from the process so I would be glad to help.

Bumping ...
Another good thread to keep from falling off.